Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Following on the heels of their successful collaboration
on 2013's Slobber Pup, one of the most intensely throbbing releases in the
RareNoise catalog, keyboardist Jamie Saft and guitarist Joe Morris have
reunited for another potent and provocative offering in Plymouth. Joining them
on the three expansive pieces that comprise this purely improvised set are the
indelible rhythm tandem of bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Gerald Cleaver,
who have played together in various settings (including Morris' quartet) since
the late '90s, ad rising star avant garde guitarist Mary Halvorson (a former
student of Morris').

Together
they create compelling stream-of-conscious sonic excursions that range from
zen-like quietude to hellacious distortion-laced fury, as on the 20-minute
"Manomet," the 13-minute "Plimouth" (no typo) and the
29-minute journey, "Standish." Nothing is ever predictable or
resolves neatly on this audacious, wildly uncompromising outing, scheduled for
an April release on London-based RareNoise Records.

Down
Beat writer John Ephland reviewed Plymouth's U.S. debut on a special RareNoise
label showcase held at Shapeshifter lab in Brooklyn on Dec. 13, 2013:
"Beginning with a dose of dreamy electric piano, Plymouth brought on a
storm of floating, shimmering rubato. The playing centered around a gently
implied beat. Halvorson's guitar work started with deft, unobtrusive slide
playing, which provided a contrast to Morris' more dedicated single-note lines.
Saft's chimey chords directed the music into a loose-limbed rock cadence, while
Morris' hard-edged picking served as a drone. Halvorson replied with lush
chordal phrases, while Saft's scary-movie organ lines were a lattice for what
became a two-note jam of squirrelly lines, repeated over and over. Saft
continued with dense thickets of sound combined with repeated loops and pedal
effects from both guitarists. By this point, there was an audible heaving and
sighing over a definite groove, menacing but also somehow innocent. The group
improvisation could be heard as a collection of voices-five individuals
foraging through a forest of sounds."

That same
collective search can be readily heard on the group's entrancing self-titled
debut for RareNoise. "This group was conceived as a way to bring together
Joe Morris and Mary Halvorson with a rhythm section of long standing friends
and colleagues," explains Saft, who co-produced the recording with Morris.
"It's a very different sound than Slobber Pup but created with a similar
attitude and focus on total freedom. Nothing was pre-conceived or discussed
beforehand. It's purely a meeting of sympathetic minds that resulted in
something quite astonishing."

While
Saft's keyboard rig in the crunching quartet Slobber Pup is mostly organs
running through a Marshall amp turned up to 11, his setup in Plymouth is based
around the acoustic piano fed through an Echoplex (like on his own
dub-influenced New Zion Trio). Morris and Halvorson interact intuitive on
guitar, alternately between clean tones and distortion tones, with Halvorson
also supplying some of her signature chordal swells with her deft use of a
Whammy Bar pedal.

Chris
Lightcap, who almost exclusively plays upright bass in his own group Bigmouth
and in his numerous sideman roles, plays a hollowbody electric bass with a fuzz
pedal on this Plymouth session. And Cleaver, a remarkably flexible and powerful
drummer, provides the glue that holds all the freewheeling excursions together.
"I absolutely love playing with Gerald," says Saft. "He is the
rare marriage of power, depth and complete freedom. Gerald frames all the
madness with an acoustic sound that is extra rich and complements all the
electrical energy perfectly."

With no
plan whatsoever, no lead sheets or sketches or even conversations about what
they would play, the members of Plymouth went into the studio, pressed the
record button and created on the spot. "Nothing was preconceived,"
says Saft. "Sonically each musician in this ensemble has such a clear
voice and after years of playing together we can great straight to the
intuitive true collective improvising. No boring repetition, no licks. Purely
deep listening and mutual trust." Adds Morris, "I think it was just a
matter of thinking about a group of people who could bring unique things and
work together well. And what we came up with is really interesting and
different."

Says
Morris of his former student Halvorson, "Mary is a great guitarist. She
and I share some ideas and so we have always sounded good together. She's a
great person who is really easy to work with too. And she does unique things in
the way she plays lines, uses effects and builds form." Morris has equal
praise for drummer Cleaver, who previously appeared on two Morris quartet
recordings, 1999's Underthru and 2000's At the Old Office. "I don't know
of anyone who plays like Gerald. He's a deep and serious artist of the drums
who is always changing, and he likes the unknown, he thrives on that. He adds
something strong and unique to every situation he's in. He's a great, original
drummer. So asking him to work in a situation that is seeking the new and unknown
just makes sense. He thrives in that kind of thing and gives us all a new
framework to play in."

The
veteran guitarist also has had a longstanding relationship with bassist
Lightcap, who appeared on Morris' 1998 recording, A Cloud of Black Birds, and his
subsequent two quartet outings, 1999's Underthru and 2000's At the Old Office.
"Chris is a great bassist who doesn't play electric enough, but that was
his first instrument. He gets a different sound on it than anyone and does
different things with it. We wanted different and good listening and
spontaneous formulation for this session, so we knew we needed Chris. Also, he
and Gerald go way back. They've been playing together longer than all of us and
they have an instant chemistry which was very important to this
recording."

Saft,
who has long been associated with many of John Zorn's ensembles including The
Dreamers and Electric Masada and has also toured and recorded with the
pioneering Japanese noise musician Merzbow, heaped praise on his Plymouth partner
Morris, a free jazz guitar icon with more than 20 releases as a leader to his
credit. "I've known Joe for over 20 years," says Saft. "We made
music together in the early '90s in Boston when I was finishing up as a student
at New England Conservatory. Joe was a local avant legend and I was extremely
fortunate to get to work with him back then. We lost touch for almost 20 years
and reconnected at some festivals a few years ago and started
brainstorming."

Their
brainstorming sessions eventually led to 2011's XYX by The Spanish Donkey, a
powerhouse trio featuring drummer Mike Pride, and to last year's Slobber Pup,
which also featured electric bassist Trevor Dunn and the powerhouse Hungarian
hardcore drummer Balazs Pandi (Obake, Metallic Taste of Blood, Merzbow, Otto
Von Shirach, Venetian Snares). Now the two immensely talented and wide-open
musicians take things into an entirely different zone on their latest purely
improvised sonic adventure, Plymouth.